The ability to model smoke and fire propagation in a structure permits users to model the likely paths that smoke and fire might take. This ability generally provides the greatest benefits for the development of emergency procedures in advance of emergency situations. The modeling of smoke and fire propagation permits emergency planners to determine portions of structures that are generally more susceptible to fire and smoke damage, and to better develop evacuation routes that may be used in a later emergency situation. In addition, the ability to model smoke and fire propagation may permit building managers to make informed decisions regarding the placement of certain infrastructure. As a result, building managers may act so as to place critical or more valuable equipment in locations that are determined to be less-susceptible to smoke and fire damage.
Currently, there exists several smoke propagation modeling methods. However, these existing methods are usually not suitable for real-time applications. Existing methods are generally offline simulators that, while capable of modeling the spread of smoke for smaller fires, still require minutes or even hours to produce results. Although these methods may be capable of producing very accurate models of smoke and fire propagation, they cannot produce results in a matter of seconds and are therefore not conducive to real-time applications. Thus, emergency planners can only utilize the information provided by these models to develop pre-determined evacuation routes, and cannot provide adaptive evacuation routes based upon a current fire or smoke emergency. Similarly, building managers are limited to in-advance planning of infrastructure distribution, and cannot use current smoke propagation models to either control building resources or consult with emergency personnel so as to direct the spread of smoke or fire away from critical resources.
In addition, most existing methods are not applicable to large structures having a large number of compartments. For example, Consolidated Model of Fire and Smoke Transport (CFAST) software, developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), has a processing limit of 30 compartments, while an ordinary building may have more than 1,000 compartments. As a result, the results provided by current modeling methods may not be suitable for determining emergency procedures on a building-wide scale. Similarly, the current methods may not provide building managers and emergency personnel with sufficient information to properly allocate resources in an emergency.
Finally, the modeling of fire and smoke propagation in advance of an event for emergency and building planning provides insufficient information to deal with the variability of actual emergency situations. For example, in a fire within an enclosed structure, movement around the structure along pre-determined evacuation paths can be inhibited by both the fire and the smoke generated by the fire. The propagation of smoke within the structure can cause entrances and exits to become unusable, thereby frustrating actions on behalf of emergency personnel to reliably enter and evacuate persons located in the structure. Having a method to predict smoke propagation in a structure in real-time would enable the use of adaptive evacuation and entry planning by emergency personnel, such as fire fighters or fire incident commanders. These emergency personnel could utilize adaptive planning to identify and exclude unsafe routes based on smoke propagation, and to select safer routes for movement within the structure.
In addition, real-time smoke propagation modeling methods can be used to aid emergency personnel and building managers in controlling the spread of fire and smoke. By being able to quickly predict the future spread of smoke and fire, emergency personnel or building managers may be able to restrict the spread of smoke and fire damage to affected areas, or possibly direct the damage away from critical components. Thus, the need exists for real-time smoke and fire propagation modeling in order to aid emergency personnel and building managers in making informed decisions during emergency situations.